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Heh, having no children, (and kinda missing that I don’t,) this brought forth a touch of jealousy.

Also, it brought forth the failure that I’d be as a parent. Spouse always says that I’d have to look after our kids while she disciplined them. This is so true, I’d be worthless at keeping them within boundaries. I’m hopelessly indulgent.

One time I babysit for this [heinous…but that’s another story] 8-year-old, who had a 16-year-old brother who was sometimes around. One day, the 16-year-old left his Instant Messenger window open on the family computer. The content of said IM:

My 1yo recently changed the size of the type on my gmail page on the laptop and I have no idea how to change it back. By the time my kids are nine, I have no doubt they’ll be able to hide their online hijinks from me. SIGH.

Hi – it’s Candace, Marriann’s friend. My son was plugging his laptop in at the Vancouver airport and followed the cord already plugged into it to the owner – my son-in-law. Both of them were travelling here for Christmas and hadn’t communicated in there ‘ busy guy way’ to realize they would be on the same flight.

As a young boy, I was always confounded by cable channels and their late-night scrambled “blue movies”. Kids these days have no idea how great they have it with instant access to any and all nudity there is to see….

The first thing I liked about using a computer back in 2002 was that I didn’t have to leave my writing (or solitaire, which is very addictive) and climb the stairs to remind my teenage daughters about homework or chores – I could just IM them! Of course these days they favor texting to communicate. They have smart phones and can mostly speak instead of typing their texts, and they think it’s hilarious that they’ve sent me three messages before I finish replying to the first one. I can’t wait until my granddaughter’s old enough to laugh at them about tech proficiency!

When my four year old shouted “Look it’s GOOGLE” from across the room, I knew I had lost all control. Glad to know it is still possible for us parents to get a leg up on them from time to time 😉 Here’s hoping the balance still stays in our favor five years from now when my kid is nine.